


A truck plowing the wrong way down an exit ramp

by sandyk



Series: season 3 tried to be canon post eps [6]
Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jonah/OFC, but mostly he loves Amy of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 19:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12732438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Amy wants to date or she doesn't want to date. Jonah wants her to go on lots of bad dates until she's ready to date him. (Post ep for 3.06, and then seasonal hires starting and Black Friday.)





	A truck plowing the wrong way down an exit ramp

**Author's Note:**

> Title and opening quote from Ari Wolff's modes of shivering. not mine, no profit garnered.

_November enters like a truck_  
_plowing the wrong way down_  
_an exit ramp. My eyelids get frantic._

 

Jonah was having the worst time staying awake. Amy had left in a mini huff that she'd clearly been hiding badly that Kelly hadn't even noticed. The whole day was catching up with him hard. He said, "Hey, I've gotta go. We should get out of here."

Kelly said, "Do you want to go get dinner or something?"

"I want to go home and sleep," Jonah said, making sure to smile so it wasn't mean. He walked her out to her car. "I'll catch you later."

He stopped at a 24 hour place to get coffee, strong coffee. It wasn't that far to get to Garrett's, or what Jonah should have been calling home. But it was far enough. He waited at the counter and looked down at his phone which he had apparently set to silent at some point. Probably when he and Amy first sat down to drink. He'd missed three texts, all from Amy. The first one had come about 20 minutes after she left, probably when she got home. She'd texted 'are you still there? i think if kelly hadn't interrupted we really could have found a solution for immigration'

The next one had come 10 minutes later. 'if you're trapped in her enormous hair and it's eating you alive just text a 911 and i'll come save you'

2 minutes after that, Amy had texted, 'sorry that was rude just kidding'

He smiled at the phone. The last text was only from 7 or 8 minutes ago. He thought he could risk a reply. 'hey i'm alive and unscathed getting coffee'

'do you have plans for a midnight party or something?"

'no,' he texted. 'just exhausted' he added some emojis to indicate just how tired he was. 'thus coffee' and even more emojis. He'd read an article about evolving language and emojis were definitely part of that. He should be more fluent.

'you text like cheyenne'

Jonah's coffee was ready so he picked it up, took a sip and went out to his car. He texted 'in car with coffee, talk to you tomorrow?'

'you just had a coffee, call me when you get home.'

He sent a few happy emojis in reply.

Garrett was in the bathroom when he got home. Garrett said, "Hey, jerkface, I'm going to bed and unlike you I do not have to work tomorrow, so be quiet and be even more quiet when you get up in the morning."

"Gotcha," Jonah said. "Sleep well."

"Shut up," Garrett said.

Jonah went into his room and closed the door. He called Amy and started taking off his shoes and pants and shirt. She answered on the second ring. "Hey," he said, shuffling the phone between hands as he got his shirt off.

"Is this Jonah or Cheyenne?"

"I'm trying to become more fluent in emojis, language is evolving," he said. "So whatcha doing?"

"Nothing," Amy said. "Sometimes I like it. I mean, no Emma and no one else, so I'm totally in, um, pajamas."

"Not to, I don't want to sound bad, but by pajamas do you mean sitting around in just your underwear?"

Amy laughed. "Basically. I can wear whatever I want. Stay up as late as I want, watch TV until 3 am, it's a life."

"Is it a life you like?" Now he was just in his underwear. He set his alarm clock, which was his secondary alarm clock after his phone. He got in bed and turned out the light.

"It's okay," Amy said. "Now I'm suddenly super sleepy. I'll see you tomorrow."

"I will see you tomorrow," he said.

!!

Three days later after a crappy date, he was complaining in the break room. As usual the new seasonal hires were crowding around everywhere. They'd only started two days ago and Jonah already wanted 90% of them gone. "As soon she figures out I'm Jewish, she starts literally creeping back in her seat," he said, still a little hurt. 

"Maybe she just found you annoying," Dina said. 

"Nope. I know what that expression looks like," Jonah said. He looked down at his phone. "Like, I read this article talking about body language and it's not as much of a junk science as you might think, in fact --" He glanced at Amy and took her picture. "See?" He held up the picture to her. "That is annoyance face. I know who I am. She did not have annoyance face."

"She had anti-semitic face," Garrett said. 

"She did," Jonah said. "So now I've added a few subtle hints in my profile."

"Let me see," Amy said. "Where are the subtle hints? You just added 'Jewish but not on j-date!' to your bio."

"There's not much value in being subtle on these things," Jonah said. 

"Well," Kelly said. "You want people to like you."

"Nope," Jonah said. "When it comes to online dating, I only want certain people to like me. That's my philosophy. Quantity is not a plus, not if they're, you know, anti-semitic, or don't like me."

"And people can tell that from your bio, whether they like the real you," Amy said. 

"They can definitely tell if they don't like me," Jonah said. "That's why I had Garrett pick my pic. I know he'd pick one that wasn't too flattering and made me look like I was kind of a jerk."

"I did that for your own good," Garrett said. 

"I don't think you look like a jerk in your pic," Kelly said. 

"I do apparently have a very punchable face," Jonah said. "In that picture."

"You always have a punchable face," Dina said. 

Jonah was hard at work, or working pretty hard, kind of, when Amy found him. "Okay, should I have Garrett pick my profile pic? I like your philosophy about this stuff."

"No, Garrett likes you too much. Get Dina to do it," Jonah said. "I thought you weren't ready to date yet and if you were, you wouldn't use an app."

"I've grown a lot since I said that," Amy said. 

"It has been almost two weeks," Jonah said. 

His next date went much, much better. Valeria was actually laughing with him and not just at him, and she had amazing breasts. Really amazing breasts. After they had sex, Valeria got up and said she had to go. "I don't like spending the night," she said. She promised to be quiet for Jonah's roommate. 

She was not quiet enough. Garrett was complaining in the morning in the break room this time. "Oh, no, I think, someone has broken in, but no, it's a girl --"

"She's 28, Garrett, she's not a girl. I do not date girls," Jonah said. 

"You date women, sorry," Garrett said. "This woman is washing her underwear in the bathroom. And wringing them out."

"I didn't think it was that loud," Jonah said.

"You were passed out in post-banging happiness," Garrett said. 

Jonah shrugged. He found Garrett a little later and said, "I didn't miss your subtle plan there."

"Oh, how I'm making sure Kelly knows you're dating and that you haven't asked her, so therefore she should get over it. I'm trying to spare you another Dina debacle," Garrett said. "Without my help, you'd probably be walking down the aisle before you finally brought yourself to admit you're just in a holding pattern of casual dating until Amy dates you."

Jonah rolled his eyes. He did say thank you, though, Garrett wasn't wrong that Jonah hadn't been doing well communicating he wasn't interested in Kelly in that way.

Amy was frowning at her phone in the warehouse. He said, "Hey, how's it going?"

"Maybe I was right not to do this computer dating," Amy said.

"Computer dating isn't what anyone calls it," Jonah said. 

"I've gotten a ton of really rude messages and just plain creepy ones. Is everyone on these sites just Sal?"

"I'm on that site. And Kelly. Neither of us are Sal," Jonah said.

"Duh," Amy said. "I'm saying, there's like three guys I would even talk to."

"Three? You're doing great. Have you been reaching out at all?"

Amy made her dismissive face. "Nope, not in the mood to get rejected."

"Let's look at those three guys," Jonah said. He hated saying it, but he wanted Amy to be happy. She should find a good guy. 

Amy showed him the three guys. "Hey, this one looks nice," he said. "He's divorced and has a kid like you."

"I should go out with divorced guys?"

"I'm saying, you have something in common to talk about. One date is not a lifetime commitment. It's a do I like you, do you like me kind of thing. And even the bad dates help you figure out what you like," Jonah said, hoping he sounded sincere. He really just wanted Amy to have many many bad dates until she was ready to date and then the two of them would have great dates. And awesome sex. When she was ready, he thought. 

"Okay, so what do I do? Wink at him?"

"Just start talking. Don't talk too much, you know, once you feel like he's not an ass, have some coffee or go eat somewhere. Meet in person quickly. Stay safe, of course, too," Jonah said.

"I'll make a whole checklist. Maybe I'll invite him to decent hour trivia night. You can invite that woman who washes her underwear, and I'll have divorced guy, it'll be great," Amy said. She frowned as she typed a text to divorced guy. "I hate new temps week."

"Because of last year? Or always?" Jonah cringed inside. He hadn't meant to say it that way.

Amy looked up at him with a little bit of contempt in her eyes and then back down at her phone. "Yes, since last year. Thanks, I hadn't thought about that all day, actually."

"Sorry, sorry, so hey what are you saying to divorced guy?"

"I'm saying my coworker Jonah is super annoying," Amy said. "Wait, let me correct that. My subordinate Jonah is annoying. How do you feel about trivia night at an acceptable early part of the evening with only occasionally difficult questions, etc."

"Good word choice, subordinate. Plus, I think other people find that trivia night hard. We're pretty smart," Jonah said. 

"Why did you give Isaac enough money to get so high he almost died last year? Yes, I heard his speech thanking you," Amy said. She put her phone in her back pocket. 

"We had a pool on which temp would quit first. I picked Isaac and won and then I felt bad because I didn't know all the seasonal hires were from Glenn's Second Chances program. Also, I felt bad because I was gambling again and I really really shouldn't, so I gave my winnings to Isaac," Jonah said. 

"How many people bet on Adam?"

"I wanted to do parimutuel betting pool where people could have bet on Adam and other temps, but it ended up being a dull sort of everyone pick a temp who they think will quit, kind of letdown. But he went late in the process, he wasn't a top pick," Jonah said. 

"I don't really care," Amy said. 

"Really?"

Amy took her phone out of her pocket and looked at it. "No response yet."

"It's been five minutes," Jonah said. "I get it, subject closed."

"Do I have to sleep with him on the first date or is that just you?"

Jonah stood back a little. "I don't necessarily have sex on the first date and I definitely don't expect it."

"But except for the anti-semitic girl, you generally do," Amy said. "Like, Naomi, Kristin, that chick who was washing her underwear."

"Because they wanted to," Jonah said. "I've had lots of date where we went out again and we didn't have sex on the first date. You do you. Take multiple trivia nights to figure out if you want to."

"Thanks for the pep talk," Amy said, walking out. 

!!

It was his second Black Friday at Cloud 9. Jonah grabbed his vest and after clocking in and went to find Amy. She said, "Oh, hey, look who's finally here."

"It's only 6 am," Jonah said. "I took the red eye."

"Whatever," Amy said. "You're on spills and trash, get to it."

"Are you mad because I went home for Thanksgiving?" 

"Why I would be mad, Jonah?"

Jonah pressed his lips together. Then he said, "We were making those plans for Thanksgiving and then my mom sent me tickets to come home. But Garrett said you guys had a great time last night."

"Oh, Garrett said," Amy said. She shrugged. "How was your mom? I guess she likes you better this year."

"It's not about liking me less," Jonah said. "She always likes me. This time last year she was hoping I would get over my breakdown and come home and now she realizes it wasn't a breakdown."

"You keep telling yourself that," Amy said. 

It was the busiest day Jonah had ever worked, even worse than last year. He found Garrett in the break room and said, "This is pretty wow, a lot."

"Man, you're so articulate. Is this what going home does to you?"

"Actually, going home made me very happy to come back here. My brothers and their wives, they were all so wrapped up in the jobs. Even though it was Thanksgiving. At the end of the day, when I'm not here, my day is done. No one calls me. It's great," Jonah said.

Amy came in and sat down next to them. "What's great?"

"Jonah loves having a job with lousy health insurance and barely any paid sick days because he doesn't stress on Thanksgiving," Garrett said. 

"We managed to have a good Thanksgiving even though you bailed on us," Amy said. 

"Yeah, it was fun," Garrett said. "Amy did it up."

Jonah said, "Was it just the two of you?"

"Randy came, too, Randy came," Garrett said. 

"And my brother," Amy said. 

Jonah followed Amy as she walked into the belly of the beast in electronics. Amy said, "Actually, it was nice. There was this time, when everyone left and they had all done the dishes and I had nothing to do and I'd already called Emma and I thought, okay, this is nice. This is good."

"That sounds great," Jonah said.

"I had a great date with divorced guy on Wednesday night, too," Amy said.

"Great, also great," Jonah said. "Did he sympathize with you about Emma going to Springfield with Adam?"

"Yeah, he never gets his kid on Thanksgiving, only Christmas," Amy said. "His ex-wife is an atheist, so she doesn't care about Christmas. And he does."

"And you do," Jonah said. 

"And you don't," Amy said. "This is a nightmare. You have to go over there and help those people or at least stop them from beating each other up. Try not to get a boner from doing it."

"Got it," Jonah said. 

At the end of his 18 hour day, Jonah was sitting on the floor, texting Valeria to see if she was doing anything Saturday. Garrett rolled up to him and said, "Why won't she sleep over?"

Jonah shrugged. "She likes her own toothbrush and bed."

"And she's always washing her underwear," Garrett said.

Jonah looked up at him. "You know why."

"No, explain it to me," Garrett said.

"I know you know why, you always do this," Jonah said.

Cheyenne looked over at the two of them. "Why is she washing her underwear?"

Jonah looked at Cheyenne. He sighed. He said, "Because she doesn't want them to get, you know, the underwear, her arousal --"

"She gets it," Amy said. "Please never say any of those words again."

"Oh," Cheyenne said. "That's smart. You don't want stuff to set."

"We're done, we're done, everyone stop," Mateo said. "Everyone get up and then leave."

Jonah did what Mateo said. By the time he reached his car, Valeria had answered that she was, actually, free.

Amy knocked on his car window. He jumped and then he rolled down the window. "Hey, is something wrong?"

"No," Amy said. "Sorry for freaking you out. Not that that's hard."

"Nope," Jonah said. 

"Can I sit in your car? I just wanted to talk."

Jonah said, "Absolutely yes. Of course." He reached over and unlocked the passenger door. 

Amy got in and handed him a soda. "I got two."

"Thanks," Jonah said. 

Amy sipped her soda and looked straight ahead. She finally said, "I don't want to date."

"You don't have to," Jonah said. "You really don't have to. You don't have to do anything at all. Well, pay your bills, take care of Emma. But after that, you're pretty free. It's a little frightening sometimes."

"You're afraid of your wide open world where you can do anything?" Amy finally looked over at him. She was nearly smiling. 

"Sometimes," Jonah said. 

"You did have a breakdown before you could graduate from business school," Amy said. 

"That's not strictly accurate. I wasn't trying to avoid graduating, I was just, you know, burning out."

Amy said, "Flunking out."

"Good point, Mateo," Jonah said.

Amy said, "I don't want to date, I think."

"You can also try something, not like it, stop doing it, and then try it again later if you want. Or never," Jonah said.

"Do you want to date me?"

Jonah refused to look at her. He opened his coke and took a sip. Then he said, "I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might result in you not talking to me again."

"That's both a yes, and a dig at me," Amy said.

"It's neither," Jonah said. "If I said I didn't want to date you, you'd probably feel pretty insulted."

"Well, I don't know, Kristin was pretty cool. And Naomi I guess. Maybe you like a higher class of girl than me, or skinnier than me," Amy said.

"You're very classy. You're class. Valeria is not skinnier than you, I think she's actually, I mean, as much as I can judge because I've seen her naked and I haven't see you in that state, but she isn't skinnier than you," Jonah said. "Plus, you know I think you're, you know, beautiful."

"I'm not sexy anymore?" Amy said. He guessed she was smiling.

"I've learned not to use that word," Jonah said. "Sometimes I think saying that word and saying it too much maybe unleashed the tornado. Like, the world couldn't take hearing it that many times."

"That's insane," Amy said. "That's the kind of thinking that gets you driving on a highway and getting a job at Cloud 9 on a whim."

Jonah drank more of his soda. 

Amy said, "This day now totally bums me out. Like, I just keep thinking, one year ago, one year ago, I finally admitted I wasn't happy. And then we dragged it out and dragged it out and hurt each other and Emma and now we're both supposed to be better off, but mostly, Adam is just better off. He has a girlfriend. I don't begrudge him the girlfriend, but like, everything that's so hard for me is just easy for him. Like always."

"I'm sure it's not easy for him. It probably just looks that way from the outside. He loved you. He loves Emma. Anniversaries are always hard. You were having a good week, sounds like, before today. I know Randy is great at dinners," Jonah said. 

"He is," Amy said. "I don't know why I'm talking to you about this."

"Cheyenne already left?"

He looked at Amy and she did smile. "I should get going, I think I'm ready to drive home," Amy said.

"Okay," Jonah said. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah," Amy said. She patted his shoulder and then squeezed his forearm as she got out of the car. Jonah felt like he was in the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice and Mr. Darcy had taken Elizabeth's hand. 

He was thinking about how that made him Keira Knightley in that scenario as Amy knocked on his window to say goodbye.


End file.
